Magazine | Radar | london

If you have come here to find out about the next weekend festival hidden away in the countryside, providing you with an excuse to take all the drugs, you have been led astray. Because Goop Festival is described as a ‘health and wellness expo’.

It’s a kale, rose quartz egg, in-house shaman storm dripping with pretentiousness that would make any rational human being shudder.

It would appear as though Goop Fest is for those with a certain amount in the bank and a certain symmetry to their face. The tickets for the ‘festival’ ranged from £390 to £1,175 - the more you paid the more pretentious activities were available to you. Those who could afford the top end tickets were treated to lunch with owner of Goop, Queen of Kale, the boiled cabbage beauty herself, Gwyneth Paltrow. This lunch didn’t just take place in any old restaurant - that would be absurd. It took place in the highly coveted ‘Collagen Garden’. What an honour.

But the fun didn’t stop there. To ensure sufficient levels of pretentiousness were achieved, there were resident ‘Goop’ shamans that tell you what crystal your body requires. I am assuming that a ‘Goop’ shaman would tell you that your body is yearning for some amethyst, but also requires various Goop products. Goop shamans aren’t the only people providing some novel spiritual-based amusement. Don’t be silly, Gwyneth wouldn’t do that to you. There was also a women who photographed your aura. Armed with a special lens that captured your aura, she would then tell you that your aura is a bit ‘off’ and, yep you guessed it, required some ‘Goop’ products.

There’s more… alongside aura capturing and crystal rubbing, there was food. Miniscule portions of vegan food, which are unidentifiable unless you have a microscope. It costs a lot, but tastes good… apparently.

Goop’s spiritual and bodily healing doesn’t stop at photography and food. There are also potions for your face, rolling pins for… something, and jade eggs that Goop suggest you lodge inside your vagina. A healthy vagina is a vagina containing a jade egg, according to Goop.

You might be thinking, “Wow, this guy really has it in for these people at this expo.” But I don’t. I don’t have a problem with those in search of some kind of connection, spiritual or otherwise. The problem I have with Goop Fest is the sheer cost of it, just to be that pretentious. It’s all well and good making a tit of yourself if it makes you happy, but for those at Goop Festival, they would have forked out an unfathomable amount just to be there, before constantly being peppered with products to purchase via people in whom they would have instilled some level of trust. You’d have to trust the woman taking a picture of your aura - what happens if she was to steal it? You’d be auraless.

The only other thing running through the back of my mind while reading about Goop, was that it could just be one big joke Ms. Paltrow is having at everyone else’s expense. She’s managed to convince a whole group of women they need to put a jade egg up their vagina. But if can’t beat’em join’em and I’ve got to say it does feel pretty dam good.

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